The City (10 page)

‘We were discussing loyalty, soldier,’ Araeon said pleasantly.

Remembering the long-broken promise to himself, Shuskara croaked, ‘You have and always will have all my loyalty, lord.’

The emperor picked up a black plum, shiny with dew, and bit into it. Juice gushed from it and spurted down his chest. A servant leaped forward and patted it away with a blindingly white cloth.

‘Why is it traitors always speak of loyalty?’ the emperor asked,
apparently to himself. ‘A hero of battle does not boast of his cowardice. A blind man does not brag about his eyesight. Yet for traitors this is a topsy-turvy world indeed.’ He smiled, pleased with his words, as he so often was. He waved his hand in dismissal.

In those endless days in his cell, Shuskara was often visited by a demon of the darkness. The demon told him what to say when he was brought before the emperor again. It knew the exact words that would halt this inevitable process of torture, slow dismemberment and death, words that would make the emperor reveal to him his supposed act of treachery, reveal the misunderstanding which had led to this wretched fate. In the bloodstained cell he saw the emperor apologize to him, fall on his neck with bitter tears of remorse. The demon showed him this, and for a while he allowed himself to revel in the fantasy.

And the demon showed him another story, one he clung to and depended on, as he depended on the few drops of dirty water he was allowed each day. It was of Astinor, somehow still free, racing for his home, stealing Marta and the boys away, delivering them to a safe place where the emperor would never find them. Shuskara stayed true to this story, even in his weakest moments never allowing himself to think of any alternative for his family.

One night he heard the door of his cell whisper open. He rose suddenly to painful consciousness, panic flooding his body, terror bursting easily from the weak restraints he had bound it in. A hooded figure loomed over him and he cringed. A soft hand found his and pulled at him. He stood up clumsily, pain from his injuries forcing out a groan. The figure tugged him towards the cell door and he stumbled after. Quietly, in the almost-darkness, he was led through empty corridors. They walked for leagues, it seemed. Shuskara tried to speak to the figure but there was no reply.

Many emotions fought for supremacy in Shuskara’s breast. Hope tried to force itself through, but he pushed it down ruthlessly. He told himself this was an amusing ruse by the emperor, to have him led in a circle round the dungeons of Gath, hoping for deliverance, but returning him at last to his cell and his torturers. After a long while, though, he knew he was not travelling in a circle. The extensive maze of tunnels, chambers and cells which made up the emperor’s dungeons was well known to him. They had moved beyond it, and were still walking in a roughly straight line, to the east, his soldier’s
senses told him. Where were they going? He had no idea, but he allowed hope to raise its head.

They reached an old door, the last of many. His silent companion opened it with a key and, as it creaked open, pushed Shuskara through. It was slammed closed behind him and he found himself alone in a smoky alley at daybreak, surrounded by piles of rotting vegetables, the stinking debris of a food market. The door he had come through was small and rusty, half hidden in a dark corner. It looked as though it had not opened in a hundred years.

Was he free? Were soldiers waiting round the corner to take him back to his cell, laughing? Shuskara walked to the end of the alley and found himself in a street he recognized in the eastern quarter they called the Armoury. He looked down at himself. He was filthy and in rags, but he was a free man.

Elation rising in his heart, his first thought was to find his family.

Bartellus’ heart was still labouring from the battle underground. But he had killed three men. For the first time since that fateful sunlit day he had confronted his enemy and prevailed. His eyes were clearer. His mind sharper. He had protected the child, as he could not protect those other children. He looked at her. Em was sitting with her back to a rocky wall, playing with the animals on the veil she always wore. Her new clothes were filthy already, the trousers frayed and ragged.

Wheels and cogs clicked slowly in his mind and the old man made a fateful decision.
I will stop running and hiding. I will return to the world, for good or evil, and take the child with me. I will find my enemies and kill them
.

His mind turned to Fell, the one comrade who had never let him down. He smiled in reminiscence. Fell was the finest warrior he had ever known. He could kill the unkillable. Yet he was racked with guilt, burdened with his need to save the unsaveable.
I will seek him out, see if he still lives
. Then in a flash of memory Bartellus remembered where he had seen the S-shaped brand before.

Filled with the strength of resolution he levered himself to his feet. ‘Emly,’ he said and the girl jumped up.

Bartellus had no idea what to do with the three bodies. He could not bear to roll them into the stream, so in the end he left them where they lay, two young women and a boy lying in the darkness deep beneath an uncaring City. He spoke a few words to the gods of ice
and fire, the soldiers’ gods, asking that they be received as warriors in the Gardens of Stone. He had little hope of this. In many years of soldiering he had come to believe that his gods were giants of vice and cruelty, and that compassion was unknown to them.

Then he took up the torch again and, holding Em’s hand, set off back through the tunnels towards the Eating Gate. The route was straightforward and he had no need of the girl’s help.

When he and Em reached the gate he swept the girl up, to her surprise, and cradled her in his arms. He climbed the treacherous winding steps to the top and crossed more carefully than he had ever done. He paused for a moment at the top and glanced down into the mechanism. There were nineteen rolling barrels now and the gap in them stood out like a missing front tooth. From high above he could see large pieces of debris – branches, crates and shapeless masses that could be dead dogs, empty sacks, or discarded clothes – spilling through the gate. He descended again on the far side and walked on, past the point where they could hear and speak again, then on past the way that led to the Hall of Blue Light. At last he put the girl down. He looked at her and she pulled at his hand, thinking he had mistaken the way.

He crouched down and put his hands on her scrawny shoulders, her bones like chicken legs, easily broken.

‘You know, don’t you, Emly, that we will probably never find your brother?’

Her mouth turned down and her heart-shaped face creased into a silent wail at his harsh words.

‘I was at fault,’ Bartellus went on ruthlessly. ‘I told you we would find him. But that was before we returned from the Hall of Watchers, before I realized how deep and wide and complex the Halls are. We could search for him down here for years. And we can’t do that. You need safety, and light, and good water, and warm shelter. I cannot give you those things down here.’

She cried silently, her thin frame racked by sobs. He hugged her to his chest and held her for a while. Then he pushed her from him and looked at her downcast face. ‘Every day we spend here puts us in mortal danger. I came here to escape the woes of the world of daylight, as I expect you and Elija did. I thought the world had nothing more for me, nothing even to fight for. But now I have you. I never thought I would ever have another friend I could trust. But I trust
you, Em. And I think you’re the bravest person I have ever known. You have a soldier’s heart, and I trust you with my life.’

She raised her tear-stained face and stared at him gravely. He wondered if she understood a word.

‘We must go back to the world now, little soldier. We will go back to the world together.’

He watched her until, tears still squeezing from her eyes, she nodded. Her courage tore at his soul. He stood up and took her hand in his, and together the old man and the little girl walked back towards the daylight.

ELIJA AND AMITA
waited until the rowboat was long gone before they pulled themselves free of the sucking mud and started to follow its passage. After only a short while struggling through the mudbanks they came to firmer land. There was hard rock under their feet and they made speedy progress. The light was so bright they could see all around them. The river was flowing towards a low, wide opening, through which the daylight gushed like water from a pump. The eerie shrieking sounds were getting louder.

Amita nudged Elija and pointed. A narrow waterfall was flowing down the rocky cliffside far to their left. They hurried over to it and Amita put her hand under the sparkling water. She tasted it, and her face lit up in a smile. She rinsed the mud off her hands then cupped them and took a gulp. Elija followed her. The taste of fresh water, from a stream and not from an old barrel used a thousand times, was intoxicating. Elija felt his thoughts clear, as if the deadening fog of years was being washed away. He laughed.

He looked at Amita, his unseen companion through so many trials. She was taller than him, big-boned and strong, despite long-endured deprivation. Her hair, though mud-caked, was thick and pale and it was plastered to her body as far as her waist. There was a deep cleft in her chin. The light was so bright he could see her eyes were blue, and they stared at him critically as he watched her. He suddenly felt himself redden, and dropped his eyes under her gaze. He ducked
under the gushing water and Amita joined him. The caked mud of years slowly sloughed off their bodies, and they stood there for a long time, occasionally glancing shyly at one another.

When they stepped out again, shaking themselves like dogs, the screaming sound was louder and more frequent, and it pressed on Elija’s ears. It sounded like a soul in torment.

‘What’s that noise?’ he asked, looking around him. He could see nothing but light ahead of them, dark where they had come from, and the rocky ceiling above.

‘Just birds,’ she told him. ‘You must have heard birds before.’

Not like that, he thought, thinking of the little dusty brown birds who ran around the rubbish heaps of his childhood.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re nearly there.’

She grabbed his hand, as she had done so many times before. But it felt strange to Elija now they could see each other; to both of them apparently, for she let go and walked in front of him into the light. He followed her more slowly, scrambling at times over the uneven rock.

His senses started to spin. There was a heavy sound, crashing like a thousand trees at once on his ears. And a smell, which made his nose itch. It was quite unlike the smell of the sewers. It was clean and sharp and it went through his head like a knife blade. He followed Amita, climbing on hands and knees, the bright light pressing down on him like a blanket.

Then at last they were out of the darkness and Amita stopped. Elija bumped into her, then he stood upright and looked around, squinting through his lashes. What he saw made him cry out in fear and he fell to the ground, hiding his head, drawing his legs up, trying to make himself small. The crashing sound and the screaming of the birds battered on his ears and his mind went blank with terror.

Through his fear he heard a laugh. Amita knelt down and put her arm round him. ‘It’s all right, Elija,’ she whispered. ‘You’re not used to daylight. It’s the sun. It’s so bright! And look at the fleet out there in the sunlight!’

Elija put his hand over his face and peered through his fingers, then slowly got to his knees.

It was the end of the world. They were on a rocky outcrop at the edge of a great hole in the land. In front of them there was nothingness, just silvery water, sparkling in the daylight, stretching away into the distance until it met the sky and disappeared.

Floating on the water, dangerously close to the edge of the world, were high wooden buildings, dozens of them, with tall posts festooned with ropes. Elija wondered what stopped the buildings floating off the edge into the sky. In the air around them enormous white birds wheeled and flew, screeching their frightening sounds.

‘What is this terrible place?’ he asked the girl, his voice trembling.

She stared at him, half smiling as if suspecting she was being teased.

‘It is the sea,’ she said, amazed. ‘Have you never seen the sea before, boy?’

She took his hand and together they stumbled towards the water, treading awkwardly on the sharp rocks. The sun was so bright they could only keep their eyes open for moments and Elija felt tears streaming down his face.

Then, above the screams of the birds, they suddenly heard boots scraping on the stones. Elija spun round, nearly falling, and saw two men approaching wearing swords and light armour.

‘Reivers!’ he cried and they tried to run, but the jagged rocks cut into their bare feet and they both fell painfully. Elija tried to crawl away, back into the cave, but the pain in his hands and knees was agonizing. They were streaming blood.

‘Stop! Please stop. We won’t hurt you!’ one man said. ‘You’re injuring yourselves.’

‘They’re just children. No use to us,’ the other said.

Elija stared wildly at the two men, who had stopped a few paces away. One was tall and dark, with strangely brown skin and a narrow face. The other was stocky and pale, and shorter than his colleague.

‘Are you from the mud village?’ the dark man asked them.

Elija had no idea what he meant and he glanced at Amita, who said nothing.

‘The settlement in the cave?’ the man asked, pointing to the opening the children had emerged from.

Elija shook his head.

‘Do you understand the City tongue, boy?’

‘Yes,’ Elija answered in a small voice.

‘Where have you come from?’

He wondered what the words meant. Where
had
he come from? He remembered his first meeting with Rubin.

‘I am Elija, from the Hall of Blue Light,’ he said.

The men looked at each other and grinned.

‘And where is the Hall of Blue Light?’ the dark man asked. His speech was strange, and limping, as if he was using unfamiliar words. When Elija made no answer he squatted down and said, ‘I am Gil. This is Mason. We mean you no harm, Elija.’